Gallows humor
Today I had my first experience of out of control "gallows humor" at my school. It happened while I was helping our hospital's nephrology clinic conduct a free kidney screening for all hospital and health system employees. It involved urine analysis and taking their blood pressure. If anything was abnormal, we referred them to get a primary care checkup, or to come back to the clinic to have in-depth analysis of the problem.
One patient had a significant amount of glucose in their urine, and had to get a quick blood glucose check. It took the nurse a few tries, and when she finally got the number, she walked out the door to the nurses station, which was right next to the room our patient was in. With the door wide open, and in complete hearing of the patient, the nurse shouted out the glucose number, and the nephrology resident said, "Oh, wow, I bet too high," and gesturing to the other doctor on duty said, "you bet low, didn't you?". Yes, the two health care professionals - physicians - had a running bet on what her glucose level would be. And yes, they were deciding who won the bet in full hearing of the patient. I was so embarrassed, I muttered something like, "oh wow, betting on your glucose, that's real nice...." and looked away in shame. The other medical student in the room just sat in shocked silence. Luckily our patient was a good sport and was probably too concerned about her blood glucose level to give much thought to her insensitive doctors.
I couldn't even believe that I saw this happen. Now, I'm not completely against a little gallows humor in the clinic. After all, it must get depressing day after day to see people come in with uncontrolled diabetes, knowing that it is only a matter of time until their kidneys fail and they are stuck getting dialysis and waiting for a kidney transplant. Humor is the only thing that can cut that kind of day to day misery down to something that you can at least process. My main problem is how unconcerned these physicians were that they were talking about their patient in a less than complementary way right in front of her. As if she were a rooster in a cockfight or something.
This post makes my second rant in a row - this week has been a little aggravating I guess. Hopefully next week will be a little better....
One patient had a significant amount of glucose in their urine, and had to get a quick blood glucose check. It took the nurse a few tries, and when she finally got the number, she walked out the door to the nurses station, which was right next to the room our patient was in. With the door wide open, and in complete hearing of the patient, the nurse shouted out the glucose number, and the nephrology resident said, "Oh, wow, I bet too high," and gesturing to the other doctor on duty said, "you bet low, didn't you?". Yes, the two health care professionals - physicians - had a running bet on what her glucose level would be. And yes, they were deciding who won the bet in full hearing of the patient. I was so embarrassed, I muttered something like, "oh wow, betting on your glucose, that's real nice...." and looked away in shame. The other medical student in the room just sat in shocked silence. Luckily our patient was a good sport and was probably too concerned about her blood glucose level to give much thought to her insensitive doctors.
I couldn't even believe that I saw this happen. Now, I'm not completely against a little gallows humor in the clinic. After all, it must get depressing day after day to see people come in with uncontrolled diabetes, knowing that it is only a matter of time until their kidneys fail and they are stuck getting dialysis and waiting for a kidney transplant. Humor is the only thing that can cut that kind of day to day misery down to something that you can at least process. My main problem is how unconcerned these physicians were that they were talking about their patient in a less than complementary way right in front of her. As if she were a rooster in a cockfight or something.
This post makes my second rant in a row - this week has been a little aggravating I guess. Hopefully next week will be a little better....
posted by Katie Grouse at 5:38 PM
3 Comments:
For some reason, your post reminds me of that Murphy Brown episode when Murphy has a heart attack during a costume party and Jim kept trying to leave the hospital because he had dressed as the Grim Reaper and he said he was making everyone nervous.
....like that time I argued with Chris about how it was wrong for him to shake hands with the surgeon by lifting up the anesthetized woman's intestines and reaching through there to do it?
(PS-I'm glad you're back to posting!!! :)
OMG, I have totally been removed from yours and X's blogs...I am very sad
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